Exercycle with interacting waist belt

ABSTRACT

Exercising apparatus in which a person seated on a seat of the apparatus grasps a handle directly in front of him and at the same time pedals a pedalling device with his feet stretched horizontally out in front of him. A waist belt is provided to be struck by the thighs of the person when pedalling and wearing the belt about his waist in order to exercise the waist. The handle and the pedals are adjustable vertically.

waited States Patent [1 1 Patrick 1 Mar. 27, 1973 [54] EXERCYCLE WITH INTERACTING WAIST BELT [7 6] Inventor: Harris W. Patrick, 2491 State Road 84, Fort Lauderdale, Fla. 33312 [22] Filed: Sept. 27, 1971 [21] Appl. No.: 184,070

[52] US. Cl. ..272/73, 128/56, 272/57 R [51] Int. Cl. ..A63b 23/04, A63b 23/02 [58] Field of Search ..272/57 R, 58, 73, 79 R, 80,

[56] References Cited I UNITED STATES PATENTS 3,216,722 11/1965 Odom ..272/73 3,532,339 10/1970 Smith ..272/57 R 3,127,171 3/1964 Noland et al. ..272/73 X 3,218,065 11/1965 Anderson ..272/57 R 437,822 10/1890 Reach ..272/8 0 FOREIGN PATENTS OR APPLICATIONS Flatley ..128/25 R Aronsohn ..272/58 Primary Examiner-Richard C. Pinkham Assistant Examiner-R. T. Stouffer Attorney-John H. Oltman et al.

[57] ABSTRACT Exercising apparatus in which a person seated on a seat of the apparatus grasps a handle directly in front of him and at the same time pedals a pedalling device with his feet stretched horizontally out in front of him. A waist belt is provided to be struck by the thighs of the person when pedalling and wearing the belt about his waist in order to exercise the waist. The handle and the pedals are adjustable vertically.

8 Claims, 6 Drawing Figures France l 28/25 R Patented March 27, 1973 2 Sheets-Sheet l INVENTOR.

HARRIS W PATRICK.

Patented March 27, 1973 2 Sheets-Sheet 55 FIG.5

INVENTOR.

HARRIS W. PATRICK.

EXERCYCLE WITH INTERACTING WAIST BELT BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION economical while at the same time increasing the degree to which the waist area of a person is exercised. It would be desirable if special provisions could be made for putting repeated pressure on the waist of a person to achieve a pummelling effect on the waist.

DISCLOSURE DOCUMENT This application derives from Disclosure Document No. 004,027 dated Jan. 22, 1971.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION Exercising apparatus in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention includes a stand having an elevated seat, a generally upright post at the front of the stand, a handle for the top of the post, and a pedalling device mounted astride the post at about the level of the seat. The user sits on the seat, grasps the handle with hands outstretched in front of him, and pedals with his feet stretched out horizontally in front of him. By pedalling with hands and feet in this position, the waist area of the person receives a relatively great degree of exercise. In order to even further augment this degree of exercise, a belt is worn by the person while exercising, the belt having a projecting portion at the front which is struck by the thighs of the person as he exercises. While the person pedals, his thighs repeatedly strike the belt, thus-pummelling the persons waist, and the pummelling action further exercises the waist of the user. In a particular embodiment, the pedals and handle are adjustable vertically. The maximum difficulty of exercise is achieved with the feet at the highest position and the hands at the lowest position, and lesser degrees of difficulty may be obtained by lowering the pedals and raising the handles.

Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide an exercising apparatus of a bicycling type which puts extra emphasis on exercising the waist area of the user.

Another object of the invention is to provide an exercising apparatus which causes the waist of the user to be pummelled.

Another object of the invention is to provide a device which brings about the pummelling effect by causing repeated impact of the thighs of the user on his waist.

Still another object of the invention is to provide means to be worn about the waist of the person which protrudes forward from the waist to augment the pummelling action.

Another object is to provide adjustability in the pedalling device to control the difficulty of pedalling.

A further, and no less important, object of the invention is to make the handle and the pedalling portions of the apparatus adjustable vertically.

Among the other objects of the invention are to make the exercising device rugged, reliable, simple to operate, and economical to build on a large volume basis.

Other objects of this invention will appear from the following description and appended claims, reference being had to the accompanying drawings forming a part of this specification wherein like reference characters designate corresponding parts in the several views.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS FIG. 1 is a side elevational view of exercising apparatus in accordance with one embodiment of the invention;

FIG. 2 is a front elevational view of the exercising apparatus;

FIG. 3 is a side elevational view similar to FIG. 1, but showing the upright post in a changed position;

FIG. 4 shows how a person exercises on the apparatus while wearing a belt which is part of the apparatus;

FIG. 5 is an elevational view of the belt; and

FIG. 6 is a sectional view of the belt taken along line 6-6 of FIG. 5 and looking in the direction of the arrows.

' Before explaining the present invention in detail, it is to be understood that the invention is not limited in its application ,to the details of construction and arrangement of parts illustrated in the accompanying drawings,

since the invention is capable of other embodiments and of being practiced or carried out in various ways. Also, it is to be understood that the phraseology or terminology employed herein is for the purpose of description and not of limitation.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION The exercising apparatus 10 includes a stand 12 having a front portion 14 and a rear portion 16. Rising from the front portion 14 is a post 18. A handle 20 is mounted at the top of post 18, and a pedalling device 22 is mounted astride the post at about the level of the seat 24 which in turn is mounted on the stand 12.

In the illustrated embodiment, the stand 12 consists of two steel tubes 26 and 28 which have a generally U- shaped configuration with an offset corner 30. At the front end 14 of the stand, the tubes 26 and 28 are bent outwardly to form feet 32 and 34, and the rear ends of the tubes are similarly bent outwardly to form additional feet, only one of which is visible at 36. The tubes 26 and 28 may be bolted together as with the spacer bolts 38 and 40, and additional bolts of this type may be utilized. The seat 24 is mounted on the top of the stand between the front and rear portions 14 and 16, preferably closer to the rear portion 16.

At the front end 14 of the stand, the tubes 26 and 28 have a series of vertically spaced openings extending through them and receiving bolts 42 for fastening the post 18 to the front portion 14 of the stand. In FIG. 2, it may be seen that extra openings 43 are provided so that the bolt 42 may be removed and repositioned with two bolts in the openings 43 as shown in FIG. 3. This lowers the post 18 relative to the stand, and thus lowers both the pedal 22 and the handle 20.

The post 18 may consist of two steel tubes 44 and 46 (FIG. 2), or portions 44 and 46 may be legs of a single tube bent as shown in FIG. 2. At the top of post 18, there are transverse openings 48 (FIG. 1) which are spaced vertically. Any one of these openings can receive the handle 22, and the handle 22 may be inserted in these openings by removing one of the grips 50 and 52. The handle may be secured with screws. Other means of affixing the handle to the post can be utilized.

The pedalling device 22 consists of a hollow hub 54 receiving a shaft 56 that has ends 58 and 60 on which pedals 62 and 64 are carried. The hub 54 is bolted to a plate 66 which in turn is bolted to the legs 44 and 46 of the post 18. The legs 44 and 46 have a series of openings 68 spaced vertically so that the bolts 70 can be placed in any one of several selected openings in order to allow adjustment of the height of the pedalling device 22.

The pedalling device 22 also includes a braking means for adjusting the degree of difficulty in pedalling the device. The braking means may be in the form of a flexible metal band which extends through the hub 54 and contacts the shaft 56. At the upper end of the band 70 there is a bolt 72 which threads through a sleeve 74. The bolt 72 is rotatable relative to the band 70, but is affixed to the band, so that when the bolt 72 is turned in the threads of the sleeve 74, the tension of the band 70 on the shaft 56 is varied. This varies the force which is required to pump the pedals 22. Alternatively, a flywheel could be connected to the shaftr56 to provide alternative means for setting the difficulty of pedalling.

FIGS. 4, 5, and 6 show a belt 76 which is to be worn by the user while he exercises on the apparatus 10. In the illustrated embodiment, the belt has pads 78 and 80 of foam material at the front portion of the belt, and these pads project forwardly from the waist of the user when he is wearing the belt. The pads are held in an envelope 82 of fabric material, and the envelope has end portions 84 and 86. Hooking material 88 for a fabric fastener is provided on the inside face of end portion 84, and pile material 90 for a fabric fastener is provided on the outside face of end portion 86. The materials 88 and 90 overlap and contact each other when the belt is worn to securely fasten the belt about the waist of the user.

It can be seen in FIG. 4 that when the user is exercising on the apparatus 10, both his hands and his feet are stretched out almost horizontally in front of him. In this position, a relatively great deal of strain is put on the waist of the person, and this assures that the waist of the person is exercised effectively. When the pedals are raised to the highest position available on the post 18, and the handle .20 is lowered to the lowest position available on the post 18, the person has to lean forward in order to grasp the handle and at the same time raise his feet considerably in order to pedal. This places the highest degree of strain on the waist of the person. A lesser degree of strain is obtained by raising the hanwaist and stomach of the user to reduce weight, and results in strengthening the waist muscles. The exercise also promotes blood circulation, and when done reasonably close to bedtime, may promote sleep.

Having thus described my invention, I claim:

1. Exercising apparatus comprising, a stand having an elevated seat thereon, said stand having front and rear portions with said seat located between the same, a generally upright post affixed at said front portion of said stand and having a handle at the top thereof within the reach of a person seated on said seat when sitting generally upright, a pedalling device mounted astride said post at about the level of said seat to be pedalled by the horizontally outstretched feet of such seated person when grasping the handlebars, a waist belt means for exercising the waist of the person and having a forwardly projecting front portion to be struck by the thighs of the person when pedalling the apparatus and wearing the belt about his waist to exercise the waist, and mounting means for said pedalling device adjustable to raise and lower said pedalling device relative to said seat, said mounting means including a plurality of openings at different levels of said post, and fastening means for any selected level of openings, and said pedalling means including means for setting the degree of pedalling difficulty. I

2. Exercising apparatus as claimed in claim 1 including means for raising and lowering said handle.

3. Exercising apparatus as claimed in 1 claim 1 in which said belt has padding providing said forwardly projecting front portion, an elongated envelope for said padding having end portions, and means for fastening said end portions together;

4. Exercising apparatus as claimed in claim 3 in which said means for fastening said end portions comprises a fabric fastener having hooking material and pile material.

5. Exercising apparatus as claimed in claim 1 in which said pedalling device includes a brake band lapping a shaft of said pedalling device, and means for 

1. Exercising apparatus comprising, a stand having an elevated seat thereon, said stand having front and rear portions with said seat located between the same, a generally upright post affixed at said front portion of said stand and having a handle at the top thereof within the reach of a person seated on said seat when sitting generally upright, a pedalling device mounted astride said post at about the level of said seat to be pedalled by the horizontally outstretched feet of such seated person when grasping the handlebars, a waist belt means for exercising the waist of the person and having a forwardly projecting front portion to be struck by the thighs of the person when pedalling the apparatus and wearing the belt about his waist to exercise the waist, and mounting means for said pedalling device adjustable to raise and lower said pedalling device relative to said seat, said mounting means including a plurality of openings at different levels of said post, and fastening means for any selected level of openings, and said pedalling means including means for setting the degree of pEdalling difficulty.
 2. Exercising apparatus as claimed in claim 1 including means for raising and lowering said handle.
 3. Exercising apparatus as claimed in claim 1 in which said belt has padding providing said forwardly projecting front portion, an elongated envelope for said padding having end portions, and means for fastening said end portions together.
 4. Exercising apparatus as claimed in claim 3 in which said means for fastening said end portions comprises a fabric fastener having hooking material and pile material.
 5. Exercising apparatus as claimed in claim 1 in which said pedalling device includes a brake band lapping a shaft of said pedalling device, and means for adjusting tension on said brake band to control the pedalling difficulty.
 6. Exercising apparatus as claimed in claim 1 in which said stand and said post comprise tubing.
 7. Exercising apparatus as claimed in claim 1 including means for vertical adjustment of said post.
 8. Exercising apparatus as claimed in claim 1 including means for raising and lowering said handle relative to said post. 